We have a broadband strategy? Bush administration says “yes” in cheerleading report

A new report from the NTIA talks in glowing terms about the success of our …

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the US doesn't have a comprehensive national broadband policy. FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein don't think we have one either, and you'd expect them to know if such a thing existed. Yesterday's report from the academic technology group EDUCAUSE also lamented the lack of a comprehensive strategy and laid out a powerful, practical vision of fiber to every home.

But the Bush administration insists that it does have a plan; not only that, but the plan is working spectacularly well. That's the main conclusion of the just-released "Network Nation: Broadband in America 2007" (PDF) report from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). What's shocking about the report isn't what it covers (or that Ars is cited in footnotes 126 and 211), but what it leaves out: it doesn't contain a single extended discussion of the fact that the US has been slipping in a worldwide broadband rankings throughout the decade.

That hugely significant fact doesn't mean that the current approach isn't working or that the US is becoming a Luddite paradise, but it does suggest that there are other approaches to be considered, approaches that have proved successful in real-world conditions. As broadband continues to be a key driver of economic opportunity and growth, falling behind the rest of the world will have real consequences for US high-tech leadership.

Instead of addressing that crucial question, though, the report is an unabashed celebration of free-market, deregulatory policies. So enamored with their own economic theories are the authors that they resort to dogmatic lecturing throughout the paper. "Experience teaches that when government tries to substitute its judgment for that of the free market, or otherwise anticipate consumer demand by favoring one product or vendor over another, it can easily distort the market place," says the report.

While often true, this claim does nothing to address the actual, empirical results of numerous studies. Why have our deregulatory policies led to higher cost-per-megabit compared with other, more-regulated markets that require unbundling? Why has the government's "get out of the way" approach to policy produced a situation where advertised broadband speeds in the US lag behind 13 OECD countries that have all seen much more government involvement?

There may be solid answers to these questions, and other models might not quite fit the US context, but the report doesn't even make an effort to address the question. Instead, what we get is cheerleading about how broadband usage is (of course) growing and how speeds are (of course) increasing.

The government describes its "broadband strategy" as a set of "pro-competitive, deregulatory policies. These include:

Technology neutrality: the government doesn't push for any specific technologies; the market will sort out what works best

Deregulation: the government tries to "clear away regulatory obstacles that could thwart the investment that fuels development" of broadband

And that's about it. The list seems a bit underwhelming; there's very little here to excite anyone. That's by design, though, since the government's only real "policy" is not to have policies about this sort of thing. The market will then work its unencumbered magic.

Is it too much to ask for some sort of vision? Some sort of leadership? Something along the lines of "a chicken in every pot and fiber to every home by 2012"? Even if it's just a national target without any legislative teeth?

Apparently. Free Press, which has testified many times on broadband policy to Congress, blasted the "empty platitudes" of the report. "Yet while the Bush Administration stands by and cheers over Internet connections barely faster than dial-up, countries like England and South Korea are bringing affordable and fast broadband to their citizens," said Free Press research director S. Derek Turner. "Americans will be left on the sidelines as these countries reap the huge economic and social benefits of innovative technologies."